First, we’d like to thank all the people who took the time out of their busy schedules at WPPI to stop by our booth and talk to us! Many of you had questions, and we are happy to continue the dialog via our forum, or email or online chat. Second, we would like to thank everyone who entered our competition, we had over 400 entries in all, and have selected our winners at random.

The second place winners of our FREE two hour SEO consultations (worth $250 each) are:

Erich Chen

and

Jacob Marrow

The winner of our Grand Prize winner of a custom Identity from Identity Kitchen (worth $3000) is: Kristie Nicoll.

CONGRATULATIONS everyone!! We will be emailing the winners (or feel free to email us also!) so we can discuss details. Hope everyone is rested up after the crazy week at WPPI! It’s time to kick your marketing and branding into gear!

Thank you WPPI and all the amazing photographers we met!!

We hope everyone will stop by our booth #1453 and say hi. We have some BIG surprises in store to be sure to make it worth your while! We’ll also have some samples of our custom Identity Kitchen work (plus we’ll have candy!).

How to Enter:

• Leave us some love in our comments here: http://photographyblogsites.com/2011/01/win-a-free-pass-to-wppi-worth-399/
• Tweet the following: “I commented on http://bit.ly/wppiblogsites to win a Free Registration to #wppi worth $399 from @photoblogsites“
• Follow us on Twitter: @photoblogsites
• Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/photoblogsites

We’ll be drawing one winner at random each day at 3 pm PST, and announcing via Twitter.

Conditions include the following:

• Winner cannot already be registered at WPPI
• Free registration does not include a guest
• Attendees must stay at the MGM Grand Hotel to receive the Free Registration
• Winner must register by February 4th to receive free pass

Good Luck everyone!

Early in 2009, Marty Thornley and I sat down to discuss a more efficient way for photographers to display their work online. We had both, separately, been working with photographers, and discussed the idea of an all-in-one blogsite that looks and feels like a flash site, with all the SEO benefits of a WordPress Blog. We made our wish list; social media integration, customization, easy-to-use backend, unlimited galleries, integration of fantastic photography tools like ShootQ, etc, etc. After developing many, many custom blogsites, we saw our theories in action and set out to develop Photography Blogsites. Affordable, Easy-to-use, WordPress Portfolio Websites for Photographers.

We are proud to announce our first three themes in both blogsite and blog-only forms: Latte, Espresso and Cuppa Joe. Because we believe in our product so much, we offer a 7-day free trial. Take our sites for a spin. You can upload your work, writes some posts, link your Twitter and Facebook, and even seamlessly switch between all our themes.

We are offering an introductory lifetime membership for $499. That includes all our themes (now and forever), 4 GB of hosting on our screaming fast servers, our support, maintenance and much, much more. For a full list of features visit our features section.

We’d love to hear your thoughts as we will keep developing our sites to be the best they can be. As always, thank you so much for your support!

Allen continued to be an absolute dream to work with. We wanted to give him a special signature brand that he can build his business with and will have the longevity that kind of investment (time and money) deserves. We’re going to work a bit backwards and showcase the custom portfolio WordPress site first. We really pushed the envelope in terms of what a WordPress BlogSite can look like, using only HTML and CSS. We have always felt that it should look as good, if not better than their flash competition. But the functionality… oh, the open and search engine optimized functionality.

Marty Thornley and I had been toying with a retractable menu for a while and Allen was the perfect client to develop it for. We strive to make our custom sites, just that, completely custom, and therefore different from every other photography studio site. The retractable menu allows for extra real estate so you can display your photos. Which is, in fact the point. This is the home page.

The next thing we added was a NO FLASH pop up Gallery that can be updated easily and indefinitely with an unlimited number of galleries that can be displayed anywhere on the site. Therefore, his site can grow with his business.

Because the entire site is powered by WordPress the portfolio sections, the galleries and the blog are all one cohesive system – all editable from the same backend. Plus, because it is a portfolio site first it is portraying the best view of your business. The well known SEO benefits of the blog will draw potential clients not just to your chronological blog but also to your main site. One seamless marketing effort.

The backend is one of my favorite parts. Easy to update, unlike many other CSS sites. The dashboard areas have been tabbed so social media, home page and blog photo galleries can be easily updated.

As with all our sites, we used a combination of amazing WordPress plugins, including a trio of SEO plugins that are freely available and highly recommended for any WordPress site.

• The first on is the famous All in One SEO Pack, the most downloaded of all WordPress plugins.It is very powerful and does too much to explain here. But follow the link to get it and find out more.
• The second is SEO Friendly Images, a great plugin that adds ‘alt’ attributes to each image in your blog posts, all behind the scenes, just install and let it work.
• The third was developed by our own Marty, especially for photographers, called SEO Image Galleries. as an alternative to flash based image galleries. It is all CSS and HTML based and loads every image with SEO information.

Here is a look at the SEO Image Gallery backend:

Finally, the BEST part (did I mention there is NO FLASH). The site looks EXACTLY the same on the iPhone. It is not a duplicate or a mirrored site, it is not a paired down site it is the same site. Exactly the same on all mobile devices. One site to manage so you can go back to that thing that makes your business money…shooting!

View the site live here. Interested in getting your own WordPress custom portfolio site, like Allen’s? Contact us here. In the next few months will be launching affordable WordPress portfolio sites at PhotographyBlogSites.com, with many of these same bells and whistles. Check back for updates, we are currently in Beta Testing.

A few years ago, they decided to thank their loyal customers and send special discounts every year for customer’s birthdays. This year the below card came and really blew my branded mind away. The seemingly hand-stippled card includes a candle necklace as well as a 15% discount, to be used in my birthday month.

I’ve had many clients compare their brands to Anthropologie. Boutique, high end, with that element of  extraordinary. I challenge you to make your loyal customers feel special…maybe cherished. Set up a calendar and offer a free sitting and 8×10 for each child’s birthday, maybe send a tiny box of confetti as the invitation? Be memorable, be inventive, and remember to honor your loyal customers, they understand your brand and want to give you their repeat business.

We’d love to hear your ideas on making your customers feel the love, and getting them to return again and again.